On Wednesday 29 April 2020,E. Eenjes will defend her PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Airway Progenitor Cell Development and Function. Mimicking In vivo behavior In vitro’.
Congenital lung diseases, like congenital diaphragmatic hernia and congenital pulmonary airway malformations, are often associated with an aberrant differentiation of endodermal progenitor cells. In addition, upon birth and later in life, proper airway progenitor function is important for maintaining airway epithelium homeostasis and preventing lung diseases. Both intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms control progenitor maintenance, either by transcriptional regulation or by extracellular signals from the progenitor niche. Within these mechanisms, an overlap in airway progenitor function can be found during airway development, homeostasis and adult airway regeneration. This thesis describes the development and usage of in vitro and in vivo models to study the transcription factors SOX2 and SOX21 in airway progenitor function during development and regeneration.
The PhD defences will not take place publicly in the Senate Hall or Professor Andries Queridoroom due to the coronavirus. The candidates will defend their thesis online.